


It shouldn't hurt.

by bluecarrot



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Feels, Birthmarks, F/M, Gift Fic, Hamburr, Hamilton Gift Exchange 2k16, M/M, Mild Smut, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-08-31 15:05:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8583001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: for the Hamilton Yuletide Gift Exchange, omg*we're born with birthmarks that match one on the body of our soulmate.the marks get darker as the relationship and feeling deepen, or lighten in tone as it decays.*  oh, Burr was right to stay away! because this is too much, too much, it's horrible and delicious and he was never so hungry for anything in his life -- so he licks over Alex's wrist with one long slow swipe of his tongue and Hamilton shudders under his hands and when he gets his breath back, he’s begging. "Please," he says, "please." So they do.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelsdemonsducks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsdemonsducks/gifts).



> written November, 2016.
> 
> This is the _second_ Yule Gift Fic i wrote for this exchange; i finished the first one and, wow it was a _bit dark_ even for me. (I'll send it over if you want to see it, but i can't in good conscience post that shit.)

Burr sees it almost at once: a dark smear across the flat surface of the young man's wrist. His sleeves are pushed up and the mark worn openly, boldly, like his laughing confidence; he doesn't even _think_ to hide this most fragile part; he’s sure that nothing can affect him; he’s so certain he can meet any opposing force.

\-- so this is who he has been waiting for.

Something dark twists in his stomach and Burr  puts a hand to his own waist, where his mark lives, reminding himself that it's safely tucked away beneath his clothes. No one knows about it. No one has the _right_  to know. 

Certainly not this bright-eyed unknown. 

He wasn't finished his beer but it doesn't matter. He goes anyway. It's the safest thing he can do--and the kindest. 

Everyone he loves dies.

 

They keep meeting. 

Burr lifts the flap of Washington's tent, nearly catches that familiar hand reaching for the same section of fabric; Burr brushes past him, gets a quick scent of sweat and skin and soap, and walks fast to conceal his own physical response. 

_It doesn't matter_ , he tells himself, taking care of it alone, shutting his eyes.  It doesn't matter.

 

It doesn't matter. When Burr goes to find a place at the campfire, Alexander is there first (and when did Burr learn his name? _why?_ ) -- and he  isn't alone. And that's fine too. 

A  soft-eyed soldier, one Laurens, sits nearby -- very near.  A rich boy, this Laurens, playing at rebellion.

Burr rolls his eyes at all this and settles on the ground with his own supper. At least he doesn't  lie to himself about why he's here: _power, fame, consequence._  All the things he's meant to have. He's a slave-owning abolitionist himself, a man without any marker of family but the name and the wealth, an atheist theologian.  He's made peace with all this years ago.

 

Once -- twice -- Hamilton catches him at the water barrels; he tries to strike up conversation, those large eyes searching his face.  Burr slips away with some obviously-manufactured excuse, and Alexander lets him go.

He's too smart by half.

 

And now it's the night before a battle; everyone is on edge and somber, writing _if-I-am-killed-tomorrow_  letters to tuck inside their jackets against their beating hearts; they eat little and sleep less.

Burr can't sleep at all.  He didn't write anyone tonight -- there is no one to want a letter from him, anymore, not anyway. His sister is married and Bellamy is dead and his uncle can wonder over Burr until his mind rots out, for all Burr cares ... b ut he still can't sleep.  He gets up, adjusts his clothes, takes off. He'll just go and _walk_ a while --

In the leaf-bare copse of trees that serves for shade and kindling both, he stops. Looks up into the stars. They're so beautiful and so distant, and must these things go together?

"Good evening."

Burr jumps in this skin. "Hamilton! Don't startle me. I could _shoot_ you."

"You're lacking the necessary equipment."

\-- by now Burr is familiar enough with his own feelings to assure Hamilton with a certainty that he is in entire possession of the needed equipment, and it is in full and good working order -- but  he only makes a face. "You ought to be resting. It's a long day tomorrow."

"And you, sir." Hamilton seems entirely unconcerned about _shoulds_. "Do you think about dying, Burr?"

Burr sits down heavily on a stump. "We can talk about this later."

"If we survive, you mean? But I might not get the chance. And I'm curious about you."

"Me?"

"You." Alex sits down, too close. 

Their thighs touch.

Burr wants to flee. He can't look him in the face; he can't see those eyes. (What color are they? How has he lived this long without knowing?) He swallows down the urge to ask. "I am very dull, soldier."

"So I've been told." The implied insult doesn't seem to occur to Alex; he's calm and thoughtful. "I don't believe it."

"This is literally the first time we've spoken."

"Not at all. Don't you remember the first time? You moved past me -- I was going in to see the General and you were just leaving. And you said 'beg pardon, private.'" Hamilton sounds amused. "I'd just been promoted, too."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm teasing you. I'm trying to make you smile. Is it working?" 

"No."

"I've never seen you smile. What would it take? What do you want?

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

"No," Burr says again. "Alex, _no_."

A laugh; the body next to him shifts its heat away a bit, and he misses it. God help him. He  can smell Alex, too -- he smells of paper and the flat sour scent of ink and beneath that, his own scent, like flowers and new grass and -- 

"Are you afraid of me, Aaron Burr?"

"That's _Lieutenant-Colonel_ , to you."

"Sir," and he draws it out, mocking in a way that could get him court-marshaled if Burr were a different sort of man. But Hamilton is annoyingly self-assured. "You're jumpy, sir."

"We _are_ being shot at tomorrow," says Burr, tries to make it dry and impersonal, to withdraw from their too-quick intimacy. "Not sure if you remember ...?"

"So what? You're brave -- sir."

Burr d oesn't answer a nd Alex drops his head, he looks down at their legs and rubs his hands together like he's cold -- but the night is warm for autumn. "I started off angry with you. We kept meeting and you were always in my way, always coming between me and what I wanted, with the war and the General -- ( _not that I managed to hold you back,_ thinks Burr) "-- and you wouldn't even _acknowledge_ me."

Distantly, an owl hoots a warning.

"Like I was scum. Being an immigrant makes me scum. Being poor." He doesn't hurry over or emphasize the words, and again Burr wonders at who he is beneath the compulsive bravado. "But that isn't it at all, is it? Have you ever been with a man, sir?"

"Jesus _fuck!_ That isn't it, either!"

"Really." And (he is unbelievable) Alex puts his hand over Burr's lap.

Burr jumps up, swearing.  "Shut up, would you? For one time in your _goddamned life_ \-- can't you ever let anything _be_ \-- "

And Alex grabs his jacket and now they're kissing, and  Burr wasn't hard before but Alex's mouth is dry and warm and opening in surprise as Burr kisses back, as he curves his hand around the back of his neck, as he licks at his bottom lip to feel the reaction in the body pressed against him now, the arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him in.

Alex pulls away to bite at his ear and Burr shudders and Alex says "You don't know how long I've wanted to do this," and it's true, Burr can't even imagine; h e never wants the impossible. He'd trained himself out of that long ago -- 

\-- and he was _right_  to stay away! Because this is too much, _too much,_  he knew it was going to be horrible and delicious and it is, he was never so hungry for anything in his life -- he's lost his self-control, he's got nothing left but desire.

He licks over Alex's wrist with one long slow swipe of his tongue and Hamilton gasps and when he gets his breath back, he’s begging, and nothing could be better. "Please," he says, " _please."_

So they do.

 

Burr finds himself hoping he'll be killed tomorrow after all; he's  sweating against Alex sweating and every breath in is gratitude and every breath out is a prayer to a god he no longer believes in, begging that Alex will be saved. ( Yesterday he wished for the opposite. Which one will be stronger?)

Alex moans and shifts and clenches and complains. "Don't _stop_ \--"

 

They are young men, but eventually even young men need to stop. They dress, not speaking much. 

When Burr is ready to leave Alex takes him by the collar and kisses him hard and warm, trailing off into sweetness. 

They're shivering, staring, not touching now. 

"Will I see you again?" How terrible uncertainty looks on Alexander. It must be a new emotion entirely. 

"Leave me be," says Burr.

 

They are lucky, as these things go: they do not die. (Burr's horse is shot from beneath him and they scream aloud together and he thinks faster than light _So this is how I die --_ but he isn't physically injured, and Alex is not even as close to fighting as that.

 

Not long afterward, General Washington leaves.  Hamilton goes with him, the tail following the dog, and Burr is left behind.

 

The war ends. The world collects itself, slowly. Burr's soul-mark does not get darker -- but neither does it fade.

He tries to ignore all of this and mostly succeeds, until -- "If it isn't Aaron Burr, sir!" 

And he's sitting on Burr's goddamn desk now, and Burr is so startled he actually accepts Hamilton's invitation to go out for drinks -- and then, well, if they end up against a wall, who's to know? Who's to care? Who but Alexander knows how Burr needs to be touched? Who else but Burr knows how Alex says his name when he's breathing hard afterwards and wide-eyed: "Aaron. Don't leave."

He doesn't want to leave. He wants to know how Alex looks in the morning, sleepy-eyed and sated; he wants to know if he curls against a bed-partner or lays alone -- but the soul-mark was dark against Alexander's golden skin -- and the morning light might show Alex his own mark -- and he's _sure_  Alex hasn't seen it yet.  They are still, in a way, free.

So Burr goes. "Let it be," he says to Hamilton, his refrain and constant prayer.  "Let this be."

 

Hamilton never lets things be. He shows up again and again and finally moves his offices closer so he can aggravate Burr at any hour of the day or night.

They don't talk about this.

_It's only sex_ , he tells himself; he tries to say it without words, with just the motion of their bodies. But when Hamilton comes, swearing and stretching open his hands in the air, Burr swears he can taste it blooming warm in his own mouth.

He feels hot. He feels cold.

He smooths back the sweaty hair of his lover; he soothes his whimpers. “Shhh,” he says, “shhh, my dear.”

 

Alone, Burr traces the circumference of his own soul-mark and wonder at it: Is it a little darker? Is it a little more obvious?  _Please god no._

 

They don’t talk about the rest of their lives; they don’t talk about when Alexander has love-marks on his body that are not from Burr; they don’t talk about it when he shows up to Burr’s rented rooms with a gold ring on his left hand, staggeringly drunk.

 

They still fuck, of course, and it is still good -- and when Alex falls asleep, mouth half-open and drool collecting on Burr's pillow, his hand slips down, palm open, the splotch on his wrist is barely visible at all against his golden skin.

Burr's losing him.

Or: he has lost.

Or never had.

Meanwhile, Burr is nude. He's forgotten to hide his own soul-mark somewhere along the way, and it's clear as an inkstain, even on his rich-melanin color.

Alex must have noticed. Had to have noticed. (Right?) But he hasn't said anything -- which is in itself a problem, he talks about _everything_ ... 

 

In due time Burr meets Theodosia and falls in love with her, with a blind desire he assumes will overwhelm or at least take precedence over this relationship with Hamilton. But when she finds the birthmark and rubs a thumb over it, drops a kiss to it, the nerve endings wake and shiver; he imagines them calling out to Hamilton, his own mark twitching. Wherever he is. Whatever he's doing -- or _whomever_.

 

It's a sweet morning in late autumn and the leaves are crunching beneath his boots as he walks in the Park and he thinks, with a sudden jolt, that he can't remember the last time he was with Alexander. Three months ago? Was it summer? No -- he remembers the windows lifted high and the curtains blowing in and out with the wind, and afterwards the air moved over both of them lying languid together, Alex saying something unimportant, getting annoyed when Burr didn't listen, when he rolled them over and pushed him down again and kissed him, kissed him, slow and desperate. (How could he speak? How could he know if Alex even wanted him to speak? Oh, everything is impossible!)

 

When Burr hears tell-tale at a party of what else Alexander has done with his mouth, he isn't amused at all. Five years ago -- ten -- twenty -- he would have laughed. _Why do you say things you don't mean?_ But now he's not so sure that Hamilton didn't mean it.

He sits down. Writes a letter. "If you meant it, if you said it, I don't know what to believe ..."

Hamilton writes back. ("How can I say if I meant what you say I said, when I don't remember saying it?")

Burr takes his time over the second letter ("I had believed you still capable of a soldier's and a gentleman's honesty --")

\-- and no time at all over the third. _Weehawken._

 

Dawn.

There's enough light to see each other clearly; there is enough light for Burr to see what is surely scorn and anger in Hamilton's expression.

It is warm, too. Hamilton was ferried across the Hudson in a fine jacket (typical) but he pauses on the banks to strip it off, waving a hand at Burr's snort of impatience.

He brushes back his hair and rolls up his sleeves.

"All better?" calls Aaron.

"Quite well, sir," says Hamilton, and something in his voice _(sir)_ brings to mind a little wilderness of trees, his bright eyes in the darkness, his gasp of pain or joy when Burr bent over him that first time. The first. And now is their last.

It hurts.

It shouldn't hurt.

 _I loved you once_ , Burr thinks. He recognizes the cold cut of truth. 

And he raises the gun

as Hamilton raises his own

as he fires across the meadow

as Alexander fires in the air

as the soul-mark on Alex's wrist shows deep and dark, clear as an inkstain on that beloved skin.


	2. super-secret HIDDEN CHAPTER OF PAIN

 

Aaron’s birthmark is tucked away between two of his lower ribs; it’s a pale brown splotch against the different brown of his skin, and small enough, hidden enough, that few people notice or comment on it. He is grateful for small favors. It’s bad enough to _have_ a soulmate -- bad enough to have his life marked out visibly beyond his control -- a thousand times worse for other people to be able to _see_. He becomes reticent; he gains a reputation for shyness or reserve, refusing to take off his clothes when he swims or screws. Eventually the accusations become true.

The mark does not change at all.

 

*

 

Three hours since _hello, my name is_ and they are already drunk and already so into each other and Burr is pressing his mouth to Alex's neck and unbuttoning his coat and Alex laughs and tugs at him, trying to get his face up to kiss him again but something catches Burr’s eye -- “What’s that?”

“Oh.” Alexander flushes. He's so damn beautiful in the flickering half-light of the hallway. For a moment Burr is caught up in him entirely. D _on’t tell me,_ he wants to say. _Let it lie._ But Hamilton can never let things lie; he sees that already.

“It’s nothing. It's my -- a birthmark.”

 _Only_ a birthmark. Only a mark. Only the same as Burr has on his own body, tucked away like a secret. So he hesitates -- but here is Hamilton, rough and bright and fierce, and --

They make it to the bedroom (barely).

Alex takes off their clothes like he's opening a gift until he reaches for Burr's shirt and Burr pushes him away and Alex startles, looks hurt --  so Burr takes his face in both hands, kisses him warm and slow and naughty. He wants him, he wants this, he wants it and he can control it, he can, he can. He will.

 

Day breaks over the city as he takes the train home, rattling on its tracks.

His phone buzzes.

_I want to see you again._

It doesn't matter. It's fine. He will not reply. One night was bad enough. He doesn’t need the mark to get any darker; he doesn’t need it to be any more real. He drew a line: _Here and no further._ Further on live monsters. (But his fingers return to his ribs again and again through the day, seeking that memory.)

 

A week later _A.H._ texts him again -- and two days after that he sends over the link to some anonymous political screed that Burr reads, snorting with laughter, suspecting the author -- and then there's another booty call late on Friday night.

_Hey_

(like a nudge in the dark)

_You awake?_

 

Burr is awake.

 

It’s even better this time; they're less surprised, they know each other more. Alex does some minor miracle with his tongue and his teeth, _huffing_  in the back of his throat, and Burr babbles gibberish at him, clutching at his hair, not caring if it hurts, dragging his face up as soon as he can move again. He tucks their legs together and rolls them over and drops down to work on Hamilton -- Alex is remarkably blase about issues of equality in fellatio but Burr doesn’t give a damn what Alex wants, right now -- right now _Burr_ wants something and he’s going to take what he wants, goddammit --

And as soon as he's there he knows it's a mistake (swallowing around the taste of Alex, filling another sense with this man, what was he _thinking_ )

He wasn't thinking. Isn't thinking. He only wants to know what Alex is thinking feeling wanting

and he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to ask

so he says nothing at all.

 

So they’re sated and lying together with Alex’s arm over him and his hot breath on Burr’s neck and he's giggling again -- _why is he always giggling?_ \-- pushes him away.

 

He doesn’t text Alex first, not ever, but he almost always comes when he calls.

Still they see each other less and less. Burr thinks they might be drawing to a close; he thinks this might be for the best. He’s met and married someone now, and he loves her -- but even when it is a month and then two months and then four between texts, he doesn’t delete _AH_ from his phone. And when the next message comes through, he replies _Yes_.

  

Burr’s phone buzzes and Alex glances at it: “Your wife,” he says, with no interest or condemnation in his tone. And Burr doesn’t ask how he knows who _Theodosia_ is.

“Hand it over, will you?”

“Shh,” says Alex. “Stay here a while.” And he begins to work his way downward, licking and biting at Burr’s collarbone, smoothing his hands down over his skin, lingering. “I want more of this.”

That’s a first. Hamilton is always good for it, but he’s never one to take his time. Usually they’re only together an hour, two hours, three at most. They’ve never shared a bed overnight; they’ve never woken together. Burr didn’t realize he wanted that until just now.

He shuts his eyes. And Alex reaches the place just below his ribs where the mark lives; he noses at it and Burr winces.

“Is that sensitive?”

“It’s fine.” It is painfully, agonizingly sensitive; the nerves feel raw and alive.

“Mmm.”  

He can’t see Alex’s face, his hair's fallen down to cover his eyes. He wants to see it and doesn’t want to see it, in equal measures. _Theo_ , he thinks, trying to steady his heart. “What did she say?”

A nip, a lick, and a hot breath, deliberate and cruel. “What did who say?”

“Alexander --”

The head raises. “Do you want to go home?”

Burr shakes his head.

“Then shut up.” And he returns to testing the rough edges of the mark with his tongue and his teeth, teasing at it until Burr is begging and shaking, and then he drops his hand and raises his head and it's  _too much_ and Burr swears into Alex's mouth while Alex kisses him again and again, slow and sweet and as gentle with his words as he is deliberately, carefully brutal with his body. 

Burr doesn't want to think about how the matching image on Alex’s wrist is nearly faded away; he doesn't want to notice that Alex hasn't been talking as much, that he's been withdrawn. It feels like a knife in Burr's hands every time he thinks about it, and he's not sure where to force the blade. (What he gained by Alexander's trust; what he can break by having had it; what Burr could do to himself.)

So he doesn't think.

So Hamilton gets up and showers -- brief, perfunctory; it’s just to wash off the smell of Burr from his skin, just so Eliza doesn’t suspect anything --

\-- and alone now in the bed, Burr goes through Alex's phone. Reads the messages. Copies the numbers -- _Eliza Angie Maria James_ \-- and the messages.

He doesn’t look at the old texts that Alex had sent him; he doesn’t look at his own replies. He doesn’t think about what any of this means, why he might be doing this, what is driving him on.

 

 

Theo is gone when he gets home. Not simply out but _gone._ Her closet is empty; her drawers are empty; her pillow is gone and her toothbrush missing from the bathroom.

Burr sits on the edge of the bathtub. What was his first misstep? Meeting Alex? Meeting him again? Which time was the step past redemption?

He looks at his phone, draws his fingers over it slow like it’s skin under his hand, like the touchscreen will respond, speak the mystery of what he should do.

 

 

 _Alex?_ he finally sends.

 _Be there in an hour,_ comes the reply.

 

Burr waits for the knock before he sends the unknown _Eliza_ a few choice screenshots.

 

\-- and they are sweet and hot and heavy together, Alex and him, and Burr presses inside with his eyes shut, he's desperate to dissolve and to lose himself  _inside_ Alex as he's lost everything else already -- what more could this love _possibly_ do to him?

Alex cries out in pain.

"Fuck," says Burr, missing the courage of these convictions. " _Fuck._ Tell me you're okay -- tell me --"

"It's all right. Aaron, it's all right. Are you _crying?_ "

"No."

"Oh, my god." Softly, and he takes his head to his chest. "You don't need to cry like that. I'm so sorry. Is it your wife?"

It is not Theodosia.

 

He lets Alex leave without warning him about what is waiting for him at home -- he only kisses him, rubbing where he shouldn't, he wants to make Alex want him and suffer with it, he wants --

"Are you all right?"

He forces a smile. "Tired. You wore me out."

No answering smile. "I'll text you later, okay."

Burr is quite sure that he will.

 

 

Wednesday morning, two am. Burr is awake and alone. It’s hot tonight -- midsummer. The heat comes on pre-dawn and stays and stays and stays. There’s a brief window of time (starting at two am, say) when the world is dark enough that it seems cooler; it seems like forgiveness is possible.

In that window, his phone buzzes.

_You awake?_

He fumbles for it. Hesitates. Finally: _Yeah, I’m here_.

_I’ll be there in ten._

Burr could tell him to go away; he could refuse to answer the door. (There are so many chances.)

Instead he gets up and stares outside until the figure jogs up -- and before Alex can even knock Burr’s pulling him inside, hands all over him, kissing him like they’ve been separated for years instead of a few weeks and that perfect mouth gasps under his mouth while he pulls off clothes and holds him down with a pressure that Alex could break easily enough, if he wanted to -- but instead, Alex shuts his eyes. He whimpers.

“I want you,” says Burr.

Alexander’s fingers stretch out towards nothing. “Aaron. Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t stop. But he wants to _catch_ this, to hold on. _I never thought I’d see you again,_ he wants to say.  _I love you,_ he wants to say, to somehow speak clearly around the pain of realizing it. He knows without looking down that his mark is vibrant against his skin -- that Alex can see it on him. _Alex. Alex._

 

He rolls over presses his hands to his face tries to breathe evenly.

Alex is still in bed but leaning out of it, he's rattling around in a bag he brought and Burr is too full of self-hatred to think anything of it until Alex says, in a strangled voice: “Aaron?”

He’s pointing a gun at Burr’s chest.

Burr carefully sits up; his hand snakes to the spot between his ribs. Covers it.  _Alex._

He waits.

Hamilton says: “ _You did this_. You ruined my life. All of this, _all_ of this is your fault. And you did it to hurt me."

It's true. Burr is mute.

"So tell me. Who should I shoot? Tell me that. Give me a reason and if it's good enough maybe I won't kill you. Or maybe -- ” And a weeping Alex points the gun at his own head. "Talk to me, Aaron. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you."

Burr doesn't speak. Can't speak. He reaches out slowly -- touches Alex on the hand resting empty on the bed -- turns it palm up. He runs his thumb over the mark that is so pale now, it's barely visible against the deep golden tone of his skin.

“I can’t think of anything," he says.

And Alex -- his beautiful tempestuous aggravating selfish loving desperate raging Alex -- he bursts into tears and shifts down his arm and opens his mouth to speak just as the gun goes off.

**Author's Note:**

> the location (& description) of Burr's mark is a wee homage to the divine piece [a kind of hideous intimacy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5280248), by thinksideways.  
> have you read this? go read it. i'll wait.
> 
> *
> 
> life is very strange and difficult. i complain about it on the cesspool that is tumblr
> 
> @littledeconstruction


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